Who Am I? And Why Am I Here?

Elewys of Finchingefeld, GdS, JdL

Barony of Aquaterra, Kingdom of An Tir

This is a place to which I may post my research, my experiments, my successes...and yes, my failures...for medieval re-creation and research on my never-ending quest to learn and revel in knowledge and experiences.

I am a lady of many times and many places. Currently using a 15th century English name, dressing in a 10th century Danish dress, and camping in a Mongolian round house. "Lost" doesn't even begin to describe my persona.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

I know...starting to get a little boring with just weaving and more weaving. To be honest, I've been neck deep in mundane stuff, so the weaving is the easiest thing to grab and work on in those precious few minutes of down time.

I finally got the Guntram's Tablet Weaving Thingy to work on my machine--it couldn't identify what program to use, so I got nothin. After tinkering with it for a bit, I made it worse by trying to open them with PDF reader software. Then I had to untangle that mess and finally figured out what I needed to do with the GTT program to make it work. Essentially, I should not be allowed to work with computers like that. Hubby gets all upset when I ask him to fix this stuff, and I have to remind him who sews the buttons back on his shirts and hems his pants for him. He's broken my sewing machine at least twice, so I don't let him near it anymore. I do the same with computers. It's a lose-lose situation, I guess.

Anywho...here's what I got done with using the GTT software...first, the Anglo Saxon weave. And actually, I think I had Emma Compton email me the directions because I wasn't getting it to work yet. Shortly after this, the computer was given an attitude adjustment.

I tried the spinners...setting it up required a little liquid patience. In the end, I was dubious of its success and had to try it again with another project.

The spinners were packed in a little tight which prevented them from spinning freely, plus the strings tangled around them. It was a bit of a mess.

So then I get an email from Emma Compton again who is trying to work on a new pattern and is having trouble with it. The motifs are looking funny; not anything like the pictures that were provided in the GTT pattern. At this time, I hadn't gotten the program to work yet, so this is when I monkeyed with it for an hour or so and got it to finally work. I found the pattern, I warped up a couple yards and gave it a go. I, too, ended up with a weird pattern, unlike the picture provided. I unwove, re-wove, reversed, tried different combinations...and then realized that the pattern wasn't written clearly. It appeared, according to the directions, that you needed to turn the odd numbered cards first (1,3,5, etc.) then the even numbered cards. I tried it in reverse--even first, then odd--and it worked. I also took card #1 and added it to the even numbered deck to get it woven into the piece without extra twisting. Worked a treat! I sent her my results and she was able to finish hers up. She had also woven a length of trim the "wrong" way, which is still an interesting pattern. I used the spinners on this again, but was really unsatisfied with the inconsistency of spinning. Again, the strings got in the way and you had to have less tension on it to get it to spin.

I then decided to weave up a new pattern from the Anglo-Saxon collection on GTT #8. I ran low on the bright spring green so I substituted the darker evergreen color. I don't like it as much, but someone else might. I decided not to use the spinners on this one. I figure I can get a couple yards woven without them before having to untie and untwist the strings. Or rather, I can weave half the length, untwist; half again, and untwist; half again...PITA.

I still have the Costumer's Guild Scholar stuff in the planning stages. Hopefully I'll get some of those started soon.